The Wars in Sudan

The multi-layered wars in Sudan, which began in 2019, involve a violent power struggle between civilian and military rule including Sudan’s national army (the SAF), a powerful paramilitary force (the Rapid Support Forces, RSF) and foreign actors. Fighting has devastated major cities, displaced millions of civilians, collapsed basic services, and deepened an already severe humanitarian crisis, with regional and international implications.

This class will illuminate themes such as post-colonial state formation, military rule, resource competition, ethnic and regional tensions, the legacy of colonial borders, and the challenges of democratic transition. It also allows students to examine how modern wars affect civilians, how media coverage shapes global attention, and why some conflicts remain underrepresented in public discourse. The class will consider why the conflict has proven so difficult to resolve.

Richard Lobban, Ph.D., professor emeritus of anthropology and African studies at Rhode Island College, serves as adjunct professor of African studies at the Naval War College. He has a master’s degree from Temple University and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and has taught at the American University in Cairo, Tufts University and Dartmouth College, among others. He has conducted field research in Tunis and Egypt and has been excavating a temple in Sudan for ten years. Richard is widely published in urban and complex societies, informal sector economy, gender, ethnicity, race and class, especially in the Middle East. He often serves as a subject matter expert and court-appointed expert witness in political asylum cases for refugees from Africa and the Middle East.